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Not Online!!! wrote:
Double turn and switching initiative still doesn't break up the igougo problem in a turn and i am sick of people pretending it does so in aos.

the problem here is a simple one because people mix different things into one term and than it causes confusion
GW once called their system IGoUGo and people take it as "alternating player turns" and nothing else, while the opposite would be "random player turns"
your problem with AoS is that there are full turns until the other player can do something and not that this turn sequence is random or alternating

AoS breaks IGoUGo, because the "Go" is random and not strictly alternating, but of course this does not solve the full turn problem

you want unit activation or "per phase" instead of "per turn", yet if the phases or activations are IGoUGo or random does not matter

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I just like how prominent this stuff is in the armies I've seen this edition. Units are more colorful in my opinion and where options aren't cutting it in the current system, I'd prefer they big fixed by trying to make them more interesting rather than make the interesting stuff prohibitively priced.

And now we're right back to acknowledging that a balance error exists but excusing it because the overpowered thing is the thing you personally prefer to see and the underpowered thing is the style of unit/army you don't like. That is an incredibly self-centered point of view and not even remotely a defense of PL/pseudo-PL.

Are you saying that points balanced the game? They didn't. They never have. Points determine the efficiency of options as much as any other stat. Being undercosted is just as overpowering as being a D weapon. The current system isn't without the same considerations. Each option has an opportunity cost outside of the stupid ones where they put in legacy support for nothing that has no business being there. I think there are a lot of units where these choices are more interesting than they would be with points. I also think GW is GW and there are plenty of uninteresting or outright non-choices. I just find the current opportunity cost based system more compelling than one based on aggregated points. It's one in which GW needs to make its options compelling rather than one in which they need to make them prohibitive and one that can be just as balanced or imbalanced as point based wargear.

 LunarSol wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I just like how prominent this stuff is in the armies I've seen this edition. Units are more colorful in my opinion and where options aren't cutting it in the current system, I'd prefer they big fixed by trying to make them more interesting rather than make the interesting stuff prohibitively priced.

And now we're right back to acknowledging that a balance error exists but excusing it because the overpowered thing is the thing you personally prefer to see and the underpowered thing is the style of unit/army you don't like. That is an incredibly self-centered point of view and not even remotely a defense of PL/pseudo-PL.

Are you saying that points balanced the game? They didn't. They never have.

Is a Plasma Pistol better than a Bolt Pistol or Laspistol, yes or no?

 catbarf wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Sorry, that's not what I'm trying to say.

Upgrades certainly have never been useless, but they've been something pretty sparsely taken compared to the number of options available. Particularly notable are the stuff that only one model in the unit could take because in that capacity it doesn't really add to the unit's overall role. For every upgrade slot available in an army where you could take something, there's probably 3-4 where you left it empty to save points.

I just like how prominent this stuff is in the armies I've seen this edition. Units are more colorful in my opinion and where options aren't cutting it in the current system, I'd prefer they big fixed by trying to make them more interesting rather than make the interesting stuff prohibitively priced.

I'm not convinced that this was actually a systemic issue like you and others take for granted. Taking a single special weapon and a single heavy weapon in a squad of Tacticals was useful and there was a time when las/plas was the meta. Taking a vox was a godsend some editions, worthless in others. I remember Tyranid Warriors and Carnifexes having a whole suite of upgrades, and while not all equally useful, none of them were so worthless as to always be ignored.

But supposing that this was a problem and most upgrades weren't used, why not start with reviewing all the options and cutting prices in inverse proportion to how frequently they were chosen? If you've got an upgrade that's commonly used, then clearly it's worth whatever it costs. If it's rarely used, cutting its cost in half might make it see play. The worst you could do with this approach is go too far and make an upgrade so cheap it's a no-brainer... which would still be better than now, where all the upgrades are no-brainers and you get zero compensation for not taking them.

If the current model was a reaction to a perceived issue with the cost of upgrades, they jumped straight to the most extreme solution possible. And over time, as the meta is solved, I think you're going to find that the game becomes less colorful and less interesting when there's a cookie-cutter optimal loadout for each unit that at most differs in which special weapon is taken.

I wouldn't say they jumped to this option. They've been trying extreme granularity for decades and have been steadily moving away from it. I've paid a point for a chainsword before and I can't say I felt like it made for an interesting choice. I guess I'm just not as attached to the nothing option as a lot of people. I think that attachment is a sign that people are used to being rewarded for taking it.

I'm under no impression that the current system won't have its cookie cutter options. I just don't think points really fixes that either. I think its way more interesting to look at the options not taken and ask what they need to do to be interesting. Like how many attacks does a melee Wraithknight need to make to be worth taking without Towering? What does it take to make Missiles and Las and Assault Cannons and Heavy Flamers serve interesting and diverse roles. In some ways I think GW created some really successful options in this system. In others, they definitely made some GW choices.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I just like how prominent this stuff is in the armies I've seen this edition. Units are more colorful in my opinion and where options aren't cutting it in the current system, I'd prefer they big fixed by trying to make them more interesting rather than make the interesting stuff prohibitively priced.

And now we're right back to acknowledging that a balance error exists but excusing it because the overpowered thing is the thing you personally prefer to see and the underpowered thing is the style of unit/army you don't like. That is an incredibly self-centered point of view and not even remotely a defense of PL/pseudo-PL.

Are you saying that points balanced the game? They didn't. They never have.

Is a Plasma Pistol better than a Bolt Pistol or Laspistol, yes or no?

It's for sure better, but it's never been worth a single point more. There's not a cost that makes it a compelling choice, IMO.

It's not like it means weaker pistols don't have a role in the game. The grunts are loaded up with them. The Sgt/Leader having a special pistol isn't something that bothers me, but if I really wanted to make it an interesting choice, I think having them always be Hazardous would make for an interesting option.

 LunarSol wrote:

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I just like how prominent this stuff is in the armies I've seen this edition. Units are more colorful in my opinion and where options aren't cutting it in the current system, I'd prefer they big fixed by trying to make them more interesting rather than make the interesting stuff prohibitively priced.

And now we're right back to acknowledging that a balance error exists but excusing it because the overpowered thing is the thing you personally prefer to see and the underpowered thing is the style of unit/army you don't like. That is an incredibly self-centered point of view and not even remotely a defense of PL/pseudo-PL.

Are you saying that points balanced the game? They didn't. They never have. Points determine the efficiency of options as much as any other stat.

The difference between points efficiency for different options determines whether the game is balanced or not. So if a Leman Russ without sponsons has an efficiency of X and a Leman Russ with sponsons has an efficiency of 1,3X then you've got a big difference and the game isn't balanced at all, but if the difference is X and 1,05X or X and 0,95X then the difference is not so large and both can be better or worse in different scenarios.

 LunarSol wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Sorry, that's not what I'm trying to say.

Upgrades certainly have never been useless, but they've been something pretty sparsely taken compared to the number of options available. Particularly notable are the stuff that only one model in the unit could take because in that capacity it doesn't really add to the unit's overall role. For every upgrade slot available in an army where you could take something, there's probably 3-4 where you left it empty to save points.

I just like how prominent this stuff is in the armies I've seen this edition. Units are more colorful in my opinion and where options aren't cutting it in the current system, I'd prefer they big fixed by trying to make them more interesting rather than make the interesting stuff prohibitively priced.

I'm not convinced that this was actually a systemic issue like you and others take for granted. Taking a single special weapon and a single heavy weapon in a squad of Tacticals was useful and there was a time when las/plas was the meta. Taking a vox was a godsend some editions, worthless in others. I remember Tyranid Warriors and Carnifexes having a whole suite of upgrades, and while not all equally useful, none of them were so worthless as to always be ignored.

But supposing that this was a problem and most upgrades weren't used, why not start with reviewing all the options and cutting prices in inverse proportion to how frequently they were chosen? If you've got an upgrade that's commonly used, then clearly it's worth whatever it costs. If it's rarely used, cutting its cost in half might make it see play. The worst you could do with this approach is go too far and make an upgrade so cheap it's a no-brainer... which would still be better than now, where all the upgrades are no-brainers and you get zero compensation for not taking them.

If the current model was a reaction to a perceived issue with the cost of upgrades, they jumped straight to the most extreme solution possible. And over time, as the meta is solved, I think you're going to find that the game becomes less colorful and less interesting when there's a cookie-cutter optimal loadout for each unit that at most differs in which special weapon is taken.

I wouldn't say they jumped to this option. They've been trying extreme granularity for decades and have been steadily moving away from it. I've paid a point for a chainsword before and I can't say I felt like it made for an interesting choice. I guess I'm just not as attached to the nothing option as a lot of people. I think that attachment is a sign that people are used to being rewarded for taking it.

I'm under no impression that the current system won't have its cookie cutter options. I just don't think points really fixes that either. I think its way more interesting to look at the options not taken and ask what they need to do to be interesting. Like how many attacks does a melee Wraithknight need to make to be worth taking without Towering? What does it take to make Missiles and Las and Assault Cannons and Heavy Flamers serve interesting and diverse roles. In some ways I think GW created some really successful options in this system. In others, they definitely made some GW choices.

They tried less granularity in 8th and 9th, a minority of players liked it. Of course we're used to being rewarded for the naked option, it's been in the game since we started, just like we are used to being rewarded for taking the premium option with premium rules. You don't have to care about interesting choices, just take whatever you feel like taking and pay the points for it, you don't need to mathhammer every option if you don't want to. If the designers find two weapons like gauss blasters and tesla carbines for Necron Immortals and try to get their rules to be equally valuable that's great, it makes things easier and cleaner and there really isn't any reason to try to make one the premium option, but if GW accidentally overcooks one of the options? Far far far far easier to give it a little nerf with a point or two instead of changing rules because when you change rules you're changing the game instead of just list building.

 LunarSol wrote:
I think that attachment is a sign that people are used to being rewarded for taking it.

That might be the most insightful thing I have read on this thread thus far. Going to have to ponder on that.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I think that attachment is a sign that people are used to being rewarded for taking it.

That might be the most insightful thing I have read on this thread thus far. Going to have to ponder on that.

It's the wrong way to look at it.

What happens now is that you are punished for not taking any option you can as you are already paying for it.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

What happens now is that you are punished for not taking any option you can as you are already paying for it.

Okay... I can see that...

Leaving aside painted units that have been built to the old lists, where would be the issue with this? You want most efficient, you just don't go with the no-option choices. Or are existing armies the sticking point?

MongooseMatt wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

What happens now is that you are punished for not taking any option you can as you are already paying for it.

Okay... I can see that...

Leaving aside painted units that have been built to the old lists, where would be the issue with this? You want most efficient, you just don't go with the no-option choices. Or are existing armies the sticking point?

It invalidates future models too

MongooseMatt wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

What happens now is that you are punished for not taking any option you can as you are already paying for it.

Okay... I can see that...

Leaving aside painted units that have been built to the old lists, where would be the issue with this? You want most efficient, you just don't go with the no-option choices. Or are existing armies the sticking point?

What if Timmy comes into the store tomorrow and asks whether it's a good idea to build naked Assault Intercessors for his Flesh Tearers? He's told that thunder hammers are the only real option, so sadly no tearing of flesh for Timmy, only clubbing tanks.

 vict0988 wrote:

MongooseMatt wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

What happens now is that you are punished for not taking any option you can as you are already paying for it.

Okay... I can see that...

Leaving aside painted units that have been built to the old lists, where would be the issue with this? You want most efficient, you just don't go with the no-option choices. Or are existing armies the sticking point?

What if Timmy comes into the store tomorrow and asks whether it's a good idea to build naked Assault Intercessors for his Flesh Tearers? He's told that thunder hammers are the only real option, so sadly no tearing of flesh for Timmy, only clubbing tanks.

If someone is gone far enough off the main road to be running Flesh Tearers they should absolutely be up for using Eviscerators as their Power Weapons.

"there is no problem for new players" is pretty much the epitome of "feth you, veteran players with extensive painted collections"

Even if the decision is reasonable from a "feth veteran players" lense, it's probably right and just for the veteran players to not like being fethed.

The fact that the actual rules mean the game will collapse when the veterans stop giving free advertising by playing is just the way of things.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
"there is no problem for new players" is pretty much the epitome of "feth you, veteran players with extensive painted collections"

Even if the decision is reasonable from a "feth veteran players" lense, it's probably right and just for the veteran players to not like being fethed.

The fact that the actual rules mean the game will collapse when the veterans stop giving free advertising by playing is just the way of things.

I mean it's the defense those people are using for the datasheet model of "build what's only in the box". Screw my Skitarii Rangers with 3 Arqs in the squad, that's not new player friendly and I'm a WAAC scumbag because I don't want to roll 5 different weapons for a single unit.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

It invalidates future models too

Errrrr.... Don't think I follow...

 vict0988 wrote:

What if Timmy comes into the store tomorrow and asks whether it's a good idea to build naked Assault Intercessors for his Flesh Tearers? He's told that thunder hammers are the only real option, so sadly no tearing of flesh for Timmy, only clubbing tanks.

I think when Timmy sees what a Thunder Hammer can do, he is going to be just fine with that.

 LunarSol wrote:

If someone is gone far enough off the main road to be running Flesh Tearers they should absolutely be up for using Eviscerators as their Power Weapons.

Sensible policies for a noble, if misunderstood, chapter.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Even if the decision is reasonable from a "feth veteran players" lense, it's probably right and just for the veteran players to not like being fethed.

This is a good point - just because every edition more or less does this to some degree, does not mean it is desirable. It might be fairly inevitable, with only the degree and amount of units/armies affected being the factor.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The fact that the actual rules mean the game will collapse when the veterans stop giving free advertising by playing is just the way of things.

Now here you lose me I am really not certain that, outside of YouTube and similar circles, we veterans have all that much effect in comparison. Not saying it is nothing, just there are far more effective ways of GW getting the message across than the traditional veteran hobbiests bringing the new blood in.

I would agree that this is different for smaller gaming companies.

MongooseMatt wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

What happens now is that you are punished for not taking any option you can as you are already paying for it.

Okay... I can see that...

Leaving aside painted units that have been built to the old lists, where would be the issue with this? You want most efficient, you just don't go with the no-option choices. Or are existing armies the sticking point?

You don't see an issue with a game punishing you for using the options it gives you (in this case, the option to not take anything)? Not paying for something you don't take isn't a reward, it is the baseline.

EviscerationPlague wrote:

ccs wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:
I just want to point out your defense of "but what if management wants them to suck" is absolutely hilarious. That definitely falls into the camp of the writers being incompetent, because I sincerely doubt you wrote that post seriously.

Nah I wrote it seriously. It's really not hard to understand or believe, it happens a lot within all industries. I'm starting to question your age and work experience at this point, making sacrifices to scope or quality of products to meet quotas/deadlines/budgets is really common and at no point does it mean the staff making those things are incompetent.

I'm in my 30s, I'm not a NEET thank you very much. I've also never had any trouble telling employers if they were doing something poorly and leaving a job if it required me to create shoddy output. I have a spine unlike the supposed "they're totally intelligent trust me" GW "rules writers" if they're not incompetent.

Well good for you! Let's all hope that over the next 30 years or so of your working life you and your spine never have to compromise your standards.
Good luck.

Any work place that asks you to compromise morals or standards or ethics or quality isn't a place to work in. So yeah, I won't ever have that problem.

Like I said, good luck.

 LunarSol wrote:


It's for sure better, but it's never been worth a single point more. There's not a cost that makes it a compelling choice, IMO.

It's not like it means weaker pistols don't have a role in the game. The grunts are loaded up with them. The Sgt/Leader having a special pistol isn't something that bothers me, but if I really wanted to make it an interesting choice, I think having them always be Hazardous would make for an interesting option.

Okey. Then should a squad of terminators with a heavy weapons and 5 members cost the same as a squad of heavy weapon 5 members, out of which one is an apothecary that resurects a model per turn and a banner guy giving +1OC to each model in the squad?


]

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

You don't see an issue with a game punishing you for using the options it gives you (in this case, the option to not take anything)? Not paying for something you don't take isn't a reward, it is the baseline.

What if it was/is not the case. You build you army within an existing rule set. The rules have apothecaries and banner ancients as characters. You maybe have 2 of each, and that is a big maybe in case of the banner ancients. New edition comes and suddenly you need 5 apothecaries and 5 ancients. One of each for each squad. A need that never existed before. The squad without the options isn't cheaper, and the rules are writen/points are costed as if they are in use. And GW doesn't give an option of buying 5 termintors apothecaries and 5 banner terminators. So you practicaly have to rebuy your army, if you want to have the units the way GW wants you to run them. And even if you were crazy enough, to buy 5 boxes of termintors to get 10 models, your army is still bad. That is mind blowing level of punishing players.

Karol wrote:

What if it was/is not the case. You build you army within an existing rule set. The rules have apothecaries and banner ancients as characters. You maybe have 2 of each, and that is a big maybe in case of the banner ancients. New edition comes and suddenly you need 5 apothecaries and 5 ancients. One of each for each squad. A need that never existed before. The squad without the options isn't cheaper, and the rules are writen/points are costed as if they are in use. And GW doesn't give an option of buying 5 termintors apothecaries and 5 banner terminators. So you practicaly have to rebuy your army, if you want to have the units the way GW wants you to run them. And even if you were crazy enough, to buy 5 boxes of termintors to get 10 models, your army is still bad. That is mind blowing level of punishing players.

Then buy the army or don't. GW is in the business of moving models, they do not owe the players of one edition the guarantee that their roster is 100% transferable to the next edition. Hell, they even wasted resources providing "legacy rules" for units they otherwise planned to cull since they don't sell the models anymore. The game has moved on from the design philosophies of 3rd edition, and I'm willing to wager there are more people actively playing the game today that have less than 2 years of playtime than there are people who have been around for many editions. The company shifts to cater to the crowd giving them money. The new players coming in buy new stuff. The old guard complain that their character who hasn't had a model ever and lost rules post 5th edition still isn't supported (rip wazdakka).

If chasing the 'meta' is your thing, then you are going to buy the new models regardless. If you're casual gamer and don't care, then I'm sure your play group also wouldn't mind proxy loadouts in-lieu of wysiwyg.

LunarSol wrote:
I'm under no impression that the current system won't have its cookie cutter options. I just don't think points really fixes that either. I think its way more interesting to look at the options not taken and ask what they need to do to be interesting. Like how many attacks does a melee Wraithknight need to make to be worth taking without Towering? What does it take to make Missiles and Las and Assault Cannons and Heavy Flamers serve interesting and diverse roles. In some ways I think GW created some really successful options in this system. In others, they definitely made some GW choices.

The problem here is that one possible answer to the question "how do you balance lascannons, heavy flamers, plasma cannons et al against one another" is "you can't". In a system designed around sidegrades from the ground up you'd start by only having options that filled specific niches and were clearly designed to be used in those roles. So you'd have an anti-tank option, and an anti-chaff option and probably something designed to take out heavy infantry. But you wouldn't then design another anti-tank option, then add some hybrid anti-heavy infantry/anti-tank option as well, because fitting those options into the defined roles becomes more difficult the more options you have. Unfortunately, 40k comes with a whole lot of historical baggage. SM have 6 heavy weapon options, for example. Crisis suits have a similar number of weapon options. There's just no way to sufficiently balance that array of options using a system of sidegrades without ending up with obviously superior choices. Since GW aren't about to invalidate dozens of weapons across hundreds of units, it's pretty clear their chosen system is the wrong one.

Somebody asked earlier how you would need to buff the melee Wraithknight to make it worth the same as the D-Cannon one. That's the perfect example of trying to solve the problem in exactly the wrong way. Sure, you can try to mess about with the weapon options and other rules and contort yourself into all sorts of weird positions trying to reach parity. Or, you can accept one is a better option thant he other and just cost the options differently.

LunarSol wrote:
Are you saying that points balanced the game? They didn't. They never have. Points determine the efficiency of options as much as any other stat. Being undercosted is just as overpowering as being a D weapon. The current system isn't without the same considerations. Each option has an opportunity cost outside of the stupid ones where they put in legacy support for nothing that has no business being there. I think there are a lot of units where these choices are more interesting than they would be with points. I also think GW is GW and there are plenty of uninteresting or outright non-choices. I just find the current opportunity cost based system more compelling than one based on aggregated points. It's one in which GW needs to make its options compelling rather than one in which they need to make them prohibitive and one that can be just as balanced or imbalanced as point based wargear.

There was a post a page or so back asking why this thread is still going on. I think this kind of post explains it. This is just yet another rephrasing of the fallacy that points weren't perfect so we shouldn't use them, which has been debunked over and over again but keeps coming up. The problem is that PL is points. The only difference is the lack of granularity. So any problems that points have, PL also has. The only difference is PL includes an additional restriction that makes it strictly worse than points because you can't adjust for imbalances in individual options. We're back tot he systemic versus user errors again.

See above for why GW have given themselves an impossible task in trying to make all the options compelling.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Then buy the army or don't. GW is in the business of moving models, they do not owe the players of one edition the guarantee that their roster is 100% transferable to the next edition.

well, than they should not call it a new edition but be honest and call it a new game every 3 year, so that there is no misunderstanding that the old 40k is not compatible with the new 40k
and planned obsolescence is good thing now because GW is doing it?

you take corporate shill to a new level

MongooseMatt wrote:
Switch systems and the 'rules debates' disappeared overnight.

To be fair, it's hard to have a rule debate when nobody is playing the game. AoS was a dead game on launch and a very serious threat to end GW as a company, with the lack of a proper point system being one of the major reasons why it failed. It wasn't until GW admitted their error, added a point system, and cleaned up some of the rule issues that AoS became a game instead of a tragicomic demonstration of the idiocy of Jervis-style design.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:
Are you saying that points balanced the game?

Not perfectly, but they did a better job than the current system. The current system has all of the user errors (picking the wrong point cost for something) that the traditional system had but it also has additional systemic errors (forcing options of obvious unequal value to have the same point cost) that do not exist in the traditional system. PL is objectively worse for balancing a game.

I think there are a lot of units where these choices are more interesting than they would be with points.

How? The traditional point system is perfectly capable of assigning two options the same cost and making them sidegrades, what you're describing is not a result of using PL/pseudo-PL. It's only "more interesting" if you define that by making certain upgrades (plasma pistols, thunder hammers, etc) mandatory and de facto removing others (laspistols, chainswords, etc) from the game because the ones with bigger numbers are "more interesting" or "more fun".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LunarSol wrote:
I guess I'm just not as attached to the nothing option as a lot of people. I think that attachment is a sign that people are used to being rewarded for taking it.

Or people care about lore. Why should a devastator squad sergeant have a priceless relic thunder hammer while an assault marine who is far more likely to be in melee range and use a thunder hammer only gets to have a chainsword?

Like how many attacks does a melee Wraithknight need to make to be worth taking without Towering? What does it take to make Missiles and Las and Assault Cannons and Heavy Flamers serve interesting and diverse roles.

How do you make a laspistol equivalent to a plasma pistol without breaking the lore?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

MongooseMatt wrote:
Leaving aside painted units that have been built to the old lists, where would be the issue with this? You want most efficient, you just don't go with the no-option choices. Or are existing armies the sticking point?

Existing armies are a major issue but there's also lore and aesthetic considerations. Some people think LRBT sponsons and quad-sponson Baneblades look ugly. Some people think having every cannon fodder guard sergeant have a plasma pistol and power weapon is stupid from a lore point of view. PL/pseudo-PL only works in a strict competitive context where the only thing that matters is optimizing your list for winning and you're happy to take whatever option is best at that.

Slipspace wrote:
Unfortunately, 40k comes with a whole lot of historical baggage. SM have 6 heavy weapon options, for example. Crisis suits have a similar number of weapon options. There's just no way to sufficiently balance that array of options using a system of sidegrades without ending up with obviously superior choices.

Oh, you have hit a big nail on the head here - I did a post about exactly this way back in 2015:

https://ttgamingdiary.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/this-is-madness-dark-angels-in-age-of-sigmar/

In a nutshell, I experimented with converting Marine units to AoS. And the sheer amount of weapon options was exactly the problem I hit.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:

To be fair, it's hard to have a rule debate when nobody is playing the game. AoS was a dead game on launch and a very serious threat to end GW as a company,

Can I ask where you got that from? Because the information I had at the time on AoS sales vs. 40k was very different.

AoS launch?

Boy what a massacre by community

Not Online!!! wrote:
AoS launch?

Boy what a massacre by community

Very true.

But that is not the same as sales.

MongooseMatt wrote:
Can I ask where you got that from? Because the information I had at the time on AoS sales vs. 40k was very different.

I don't have sources anymore because that era is long past but stores weren't selling it, online communities were dead, and I'm pretty sure even GW's own financial reports showed a decline. The only traffic the game was getting was people mocking its cringe-worthy "comedy" rules, complete lack of a point system or any attempts at balance, and easily exploitable rules like being able to build models so they couldn't ever be charged or having armies that would literally automatically win the game as soon as you put them on the table. And it's backed up by how quickly GW rushed out a second edition of the game with a point system and more serious rules.

Let’s not pretend that all Leman Russ builds have been equally viable in any edition. This is an old problem. Though I don’t anymore, I used to rebuild, repaint, magnetize stuff with every new edition. Some of my units have been noticeably altered 5 times across the 6 ish editions they’ve been part of my collection.

The fundamental issue seems to be that people are making errant assumptions on new players on this website that by structure and creed tends to draw veterans.

For those assuming I am guessing why 90% of players I teach pass on 40K, I am not. In my club kids are fully aware of the game cost and I ask them if they’re still interested. I have every army in my signature and they are all (except the 2 HH companies) available to all players. My club keeps 10-20 active members and there’s an exit and entry of about 25% annually (kids graduate, freshmen enter… though some graduates stay local).

I have about 6 other well stocked games and the cost is $0 to the players. By far the hardest game to teach and the hardest to retain players in once they’ve played it is 40K. The cost is irrelevant to them. They’re not paying. I ask them why they’re not interested: almost universally it’s overly complicated army construction at a minute level and so much time just locating needed information (both in construction and during a game). For the few that make it over that hump, the seemingly pointless extra steps to discern damage done from an attack is often the final straw.

I’ve talked to many other Warhammer Alliance sponsors through the last 2 years. I cannot recall any that were not experiencing the same issues.

Warhammer Alliance feedback was a big part of the 10th edition process (as per GW) because we’re routinely teaching the game and getting a broad and deep rotating sample set of the new player experience. Players get 8 models, quick start rules, terrain, brushes, and several paints, each year. All on GW. In return we give fairly detailed feedback.

I’m not guessing what was turning away new players. I know (at least in my 4 county area) what the hurdles are. Cost is a factor. For sure. But GW isn’t going to change that.

The play test 10th rules… at least some variants… made many of these bold improvements (well only bold to the 40K crowd, pretty minor outside this subset). What we ended up with was hesitant. But I am certain it’s a move in the right direction. GW designers just seem to not understand, in their final version that

A) doing something halfway is harmful not 50% better than not making the change
B) all options needed to have (something near) equal value, otherwise set costs is silly.

I like the system and the idea. I’m disappointed with the implementation. It’s not very hard to see how not having sponsons or having empirically weaker weapons could have been made a positive. Give tanks w/o sponsons +1 T or better leadership or something else that gives a benefit/cost comparable to plasma sponsons. Give heavy bolters more shots. If taking a weak pistol, add +1 a to melee attacks.

I don’t mean any of these in specific, just the concept in general. I’d love to say I’m optimistic that GW will stay the course, look to the sustainability of their game, and frankly ignore rule luddites. They need to edit profiles and make all choices at least have viable benefits. They should go further down the set cost path. We pretty universally suggested this. This would give all existing models stronger utility and keep the game accessible.

They won’t. I’m certain we’ll get

1) a lean back to what we had before
2) further imbalance to push new kits
3) or maybe, nemesis weapon treatment where all Leman Russ tanks have 1 profile (but I hope not)

And regardless: rules bloat.

I will fully acknowledge that the Leman Russ is extremely problematic with this approach and due to its crazy variability, it’s gonna suffer. It’ll probably have a whole 1 card by 11th edition. That stinks. But it’ll have company w Grey Knights and First born as being robbed of its options and flexibility. If that’s the trade for the game surviving, then I’m good w it.

 Lobokai wrote:
Let’s not pretend that all Leman Russ builds have been equally viable in any edition. This is an old problem.

No, it's a new problem and you are another person who doesn't understand the concept of systemic errors. LRBTs had inaccurate point costs sometimes in the past because GW used the system poorly, LRBTs in 10th have the exact same problem (hello vanquisher) of user error but ALSO have systemic errors where the system itself by deliberate design forces an error to happen.

I ask them why they’re not interested: almost universally it’s overly complicated army construction at a minute level

Why are you teaching them how army construction works? You should be using fixed (and very basic) army lists you create for them, not throwing them into the deep end and getting them bogged down in irrelevant issues. They shouldn't know anything about how army construction works until they've mastered the on-table game, at which point a few extra seconds in adding up point costs is a non-issue.

It sounds like the issue here is you're doing a bad job of teaching 40k (and maybe a better job of teaching other games). Maybe you should look at how you got a 5x better retention rate with X-Wing, a game that had the exact same point system as traditional 40k, and see how you could improve your 40k methods?

Give tanks w/o sponsons +1 T or better leadership or something else that gives a benefit/cost comparable to plasma sponsons.

And here's an excellent example of the poor design PL forces you into. Why would having fewer guns on a tank improve its leadership? It may be balanced well in some abstract sense that matters to list optimization for tournament play but it's horrible for everything else, especially new players. "You pay additional points to add additional guns to your tank" is intuitive and straightforward. "You get better leadership if you don't add those guns" is counter-intuitive and confusing and when it happens too often people give up on trying to understand the game and play something else.

MongooseMatt wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
AoS launch?

Boy what a massacre by community

Very true.

But that is not the same as sales.

Again, locally the old 13 year Long dead community has more players than aos.

And for many others it is just burnt due to the launch, and the killing off of whfb.

 ThePaintingOwl wrote:
No, it's a new problem and you are another person who doesn't understand the concept of systemic errors.

Then you proceed to explain how it’s an old problem… brilliant. Ironically I explained to you how the new concept is solid but it has systemic errors and it went over your head. The very thing you’re frustrated people aren’t getting is also what you’re failing to understand.

Why are you teaching them how army construction works?

Funny. I never said I did. Let me step over this massive strawman for you. I start everyone in every game with prebuilt and straightforward forces. In every other game after game 1 they get the rules. I have them flip sides or rotate to a new table for game 2. By game three they’re excited. Know what they need to know, are building, lances, fleets, squadrons, armies… etc. But they’re frustrated and disenchanted with 40K at how hard it is to feel like they know what’s going on when they look at other forces and that being ready to build a force is so far away. Also the internet exists. I can try, but trying to gatekeep a rule system is silly. Especially when GrimDarkFuture which is essentially 40K+ common sense is another game they play. It has pretty much the same experience as 40K, but moves much faster. I’m sure you know this but GW has liberal stole from this system in the past… removing vehicles as a separate stat system, no templates, all were put in the 1page40k and worked before GW stumbling put them in.

Young war gamers want to make THEIR force ASAP. This is how they are. But thank you for the pointless lecture. If you think 9th edition was an approachable game to teach, then you need to play more games. XWing is light years away from 40K in list building. Seriously?!

And here's an excellent example of the poor design PL forces you into. Why would having fewer guns on a tank improve its leadership?

You know I was tossing this out as a flippant example. And something like +1 T for no sponsons makes good sense. It was an concept example. And we all know the Leman Russ is a worst case example that will soon be a legend.

You can’t have it both ways: advocating that our unapproachable legacy points system is good, but not been used well while refusing to see that the set cost system is good too just isn’t being implemented well. Either systems are judged by their possibilities or by their current form. Pick one and stick to it. When you do, 9th ed drove people away. It needed to change. I’m not sure 10th ed is that right change, but at least is moving away from an outdated, dying, and unbalanced ruleset that increasingly people are setting aside for 3rd party options.

LunarSol wrote:I guess I'm just not as attached to the nothing option as a lot of people. I think that attachment is a sign that people are used to being rewarded for taking it.

I'm 'attached to the nothing option' in the same way that I'm emotionally invested in my restaurant bill charging me for all the things I ordered and none of the things I didn't.

This isn't a matter of 'being rewarded' or a particularly deep philosophical question. I built my Leman Russes without sponsons because I prefer the way they look, because it's a valid option in the kit, because it's how FW has them on their website, because it's always been a viable setup in the rules, and I shouldn't have to pay for sponsons I'm not using.

I don't mind if the solution is to give the sponson-less Russes some other advantage, but I still have no idea how they can possibly make a laspistol equal to a plasma pistol, or a chainsword equal to a power fist, and until they do gak's broke.

MongooseMatt wrote:

EviscerationPlague wrote:

It invalidates future models too

Errrrr.... Don't think I follow...

Little Timmy goes and builds all his Sergeants with chainswords, because chainsaw swords are cool.

Little Timmy has just gotten screwed by a ruleset that punishes him for just building the kit as instructed, and rewards powergamers for scrutinizing the datasheet and picking the best option instead. It's not just a less competitively efficient loadout, it's strictly worse with no upsides, and once he starts getting games in he's probably going to consider tearing the arms off his models to build them 'correctly'.